France's Fickle Appetite

By Diane Johnson

Published: August 2, 1999

PARIS—
It is perhaps not surprising that the British, who have a side that is mistrustful of science, who subscribe to homeopathy and often refuse to be vaccinated, are up in arms about genetically modified foods.

The newspapers and the BBC are in full cry about the possible dangers of genetic modification and, specifically, about the notion that America's genetically modified food is being foisted off on England with what they see as the collusion of Lord Sainsbury, scion of the British supermarket chain, and other wealthy food entrepreneurs. Class animus thus combines with anti-Americanism in a call for the British Government to interdict American ''G.M. products'' (as the British call them).

The French opposition, however, is more of a puzzle. The French generally tend to be trustful of science, scornful of environmental alarmists and more accepting than Americans would be of things like the nuclear reactors smoldering in their pastoral landscapes. And of course they themselves are doing research in the field of biotechnology.

So it's more surprising to hear the French take a skeptical, indeed hostile, tone about scientific innovation. Yet they have done just that during the current trade battle, in which the United States has imposed tariffs on products like Dijon mustard in retaliation for Europe's efforts to ban hormone-treated American beef. ''No hormones in foie gras country,'' read posters slapped on the windows of a French McDonald's last week by irate farmers.

The French say that genetically modified foods are not environmentally safe, that they're an attempt to enslave poor farmers in developing nations by creating a need for them to buy American seeds each year (because genetically modified plants are sterile), that eating them may be like eating poison. They mention the recent finding that the caterpillars of monarch butterflies are killed by pollen from genetically altered corn.

To explain French reaction, one might blame a rising anti-Americanism, the sensitivity of the French Government to the concerns of French farmers and an atmosphere already jittery about foodstuffs. The mad-cow disease that terrified England has turned up, in a few cases, in France, Switzerland and other countries. More recently, there has been dioxin contamination in Belgium and a scare about toxic cans of Coke. And over it all has been the intransigence of the American Government in insisting on the right to sell hormone- and antibiotic-treated beef to Europeans despite their belief that these substances are harmful.

Thus the anti-Americanism of the French merges with their anti-Europeanism, with their resistance to the bureaucrats of Brussels who want them to pasteurize their Camembert (the same bureaucrats who have proclaimed their resistance to the Latin American bananas exported by American companies, which are too curved or something).

But above all, the French opposition to genetically modified foods seems to be driven by the new direction of French foreign policy, which sees France, with other European powers, as creating a counterbalance to American power. Some analysts have speculated that this reflects their chagrin at Europe's failure to act effectively in the Balkans without American leadership.

Yet if the issue is complicated by cultural divides and intercontinental politics, there is a simple common denominator as well: a lack of information, all around.

At first, to an American, the European reactions to our harmless soybeans and corn seem extreme. We tend to think of genetic modification as a process akin to natural selection, just speeded up. Even if we ourselves might wish to avoid the hormones and antibiotics in beef (and more and more people do, at least in California), the American public is not up in arms about soybeans and is receptive to the idea that these high-yield genetically engineered crops hold out hope for the future of a hungry planet.

Yet an American living in France cannot help but be aware that the European arguments against genetically modified plants (and hormone-treated beef), including scientific studies, are not being made widely available to the American public, perhaps because American scientists or food producers don't believe European science, dismissing it as self-interested.

It would seem the full story is not coming out, in any country. We tend to assume Americans are better informed, so it is disconcerting to think that our Government didn't concede until two weeks ago that it would begin long-term studies on the safety of genetically altered farm products (after long calling European concerns in this area unreasonable).

So we are insisting that Europeans accept products of ours that they don't want, but we haven't actually done the research yet to prove the safety of these products? Neither the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, nor the Environmental Protection Agency have thoroughly examined genetic modification. They have left it to agribusiness to determine the safety of these products. But after the tobacco mess, aren't we skeptical of corporate claims?

The Agriculture Department has failed to acknowledge the concerns of American environmental groups that have already raised these issues. One could wish, first of all, that the facts, whatever they are, come out free of political considerations and bias. Until they do, basically American consumers have to rely on European anti-American intransigence to protect us, too.

Drawing. (Titus Neijens)

Diane Johnson, who divides her time between Paris and San Francisco, is the author of ''Le Divorce.''